


After

by rageprufrock



Category: Smallville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex isn't afraid of the immediate consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

Lex does these sorts of things occasionally. It's not like he's proud  
of it.

  
He gathers up glass fragments in his hand, a sullen, tired look on his  
face, and all he can think is that he's really, really bad at this.  
Maybe, Lex isn't cut out for being the Luthor scion; maybe, Lex should  
have stuck with the original plan, done his graduate work at Yale, and  
worked in a lab for the rest of his life. Lex has a killer instinct,  
but it always feels like it's borrowed, channeled from remaindered evil  
that Lionel carelessly tucked into Lex's DNA.

  
His staff is not stupid, so when he heard terror-quick footsteps  
leaving Lex's offices earlier that day, and then the sound of utter and  
total destruction that was Lex tearing through his office all night,  
they left. Lex doesn't blame them; he probably would have had them all  
fired anyway, their daughters raped, villages burned, etc. etc. He's  
sure that Dominic does those sorts of things.

  
While it's good that Lex didn't indulge in any spontaneous acts of  
random cruelty toward his very nice cook and even nicer housekeeper,  
it's bad because he has to clean up on his own.

  
It's far too late to call anyone in, and Lex doesn't want the company.

  
The helicopter ride home was bad enough, with Martha and Jonathan Kent  
clinging to one another in the full measure of disgustingly functional  
marital bliss, and Clark smiling like a dog given constant praise. In  
between all of the affection and petting and family togetherness,  
Jonathan sent evil glares toward Lex, and Clark gave him pitying looks.

  
Lex thinks that if the fuckers can't get themselves home from  
Metropolis, they should damn well have the courtesy to at least leave  
him the fuck alone on the ride back.

  
People would get a huge kick out of this, this image of Lex Luthor,  
playboy extraordinaire and multibillion dollar corporate bastard  
sitting cross-legged on his floor, picking up bits of glass from the  
rug. Lex has a dustpan and a broom, and the vacuum is down the hall,  
waiting until Lex gets all the really big stuff off the ground. His  
monitor is sitting in fourteen pieces of various size in a box on the  
curb. He carried it there himself.

  
Lex knew it when he was nine and saw the fire fall from the sky toward  
him.

  
Lex knew it when he was thirteen and he told his mom he'd be just a  
minute.

  
Lex knew it when he was twenty-one and the water under the bridge  
sparkled.

  
Lex has always known it: the worst part is the after.

  
He should be more upset about this, because it's almost four in the  
morning and he spent the night doing menial labor. First helping his  
father's servants pack up his wing of the house, then making a sandwich,  
washing his own dishes, and cutting up his arm with the knife. It took  
him ten minutes of watching pale pink water slide down the drain before  
he told himself to snap the fuck out of it, and that cutting wasn't  
trendy anymore. So Lex put away the knife, went down to study, and put  
all the books back on the shelves.

  
It's sort of comforting, actually, to be able to sit there in his own  
house and hear nothing but himself. Sure, it's lonely. Sure, it's the  
perfect setting for a really _spectacularly_ messy suicide. And sure,  
Lex is bad at everything, has no real _reason_ to keep living, and  
doesn't deserve...anything. But.

  
He's above that. And besides, he's tried dozens of times.

  
Scars on top of scars. There's a reason he always wears long sleeves.

  
He overreacted _a lot_ when he was fifteen.

  
The doctor told him something about a mood disorder. Lex corrected  
that ambitiously with his own creative mixes of happy-making substances  
when he was sixteen. By seventeen, he'd been fucked up the ass in the  
back room of a club one too many times, and after not being able to  
walk properly for goddamn near a month, Lex shaped the hell up and went  
to college because Lionel couldn't follow him there.

  
And he was happy, and harmless with a shark's smile. He made friends  
in college, met girls and boys in college. He thinks he might have  
even really liked one of them, but she'd gone and gotten herself killed.  
Fuck Amanda, anyway.

  
He drops the handful of glass shards on his desk and sweeps the broom  
one more time over all the bare floors. It's not like Lex walks around  
barefoot in his office, but he _could_, and he's always liked being  
cautious.

  
...Which is fucking incomprehensible in relation to what happened today.

  
He can't process any of it now.

  
So he plugs in the vacuum, and thinks how quaint it is. The Inquisitor  
would _love_ this: Luthor Heir Cleans House! There would be a four  
page spread with pictures of Lex looking exhausted and pushing a hoover  
around.

  
Speaking of hoovers - where the fuck is _Helen_, anyway?

  
And he didn't just have that thought. Because hell, that was mean as  
anything Lex ever thought, and Helen didn't deserve that. Granted, she  
was a pushy bitch who had lied and seemed to think that an emotional  
drop-kick was the proper reaction to _anything_, but Lex admitted to  
himself sometimes that he had a stripe of masochism in himself at least  
as wide as Clark Kent was tall. Lex was sort of surprised he hadn't  
died in the pursuit of wonderful, guilty pain yet.

  
Yeah. Granted.

  
He is listening to her sleepy voice say, "Hello?" by the time he  
realizes what he's doing.

  
"Helen," he says. He is really shocked by how calm he is.

  
"Oh - God, Lex!" she gasps, and there's the sound of fumbling cloth.  
"I was watching the news all night - I must have passed out - are you  
all right? Is everything okay?"

  
Okay. Not a Hoover. Lex is going to punch himself in the face in  
penance for that one.

  
Helen's not Clark, nowhere close. But God, she's still good, and she  
doesn't deserve him.

  
"I'm fine, I just - " he starts.

  
"I called you dozens of times," she says, and her voice is shaking.  
There's the sound of metal jingling in the background. "I - I couldn't  
get through. I saw you on TV. Are you okay? Are you sure you're  
okay?"

  
He's getting really tired now. Because it's okay to be strong when you  
have no other options, but Helen is...easy and soft. And that's why he  
liked her and kept her around to begin with. And after having taken  
all the time to _explain_ about himself, he thinks that maybe, maybe he  
can do this - be tired around her. He would really like to.

  
He'd really like to do a lot of things.

  
So he thinks a long time, and flashes to images of Clark on warm, sunny  
days. Clark teaching Lex the ins and outs of small town gossip, giving  
Lex the inside scoop on who Mrs. Gabble had her claws in which week,  
and which newest teenaged couple was doomed. Clark sitting silently  
while Lex ranted and raved and whined about his father in not so many  
words. Clark smiling at Lex over a too-orange sunset in his barn,  
listening to Lex say things about legend and destiny and _believing_  
him. Clark...bent over him, dripping with water, flushed with relief,  
thinking that he'd just saved someone worth saving.

  
But...Clark's not here.

  
"Lex? I'm coming over, okay? God, are you sure you're okay?"

  
He feels a wry, resigned grin on his face. "Yeah. I'll tell you about  
Yale."

  
He hears a bark of laughter over the line. "Yale? Lex!"

  
"Come over, Helen," he says, and hangs up.

  
It's the best he can do.

  
So he pushes the vacuum to one side and stands over his desk, willing  
his mind to shut down, to go somewhere warmer and safer and simpler.

  
And Lex crushes his hand to the surface of the cool glass, feeling all  
those broken pieces he gathered so carefully break his skin and the hot,  
metallic tang of blood fill the air.

  
Lex isn't worried about anything right now.

  
He's afraid of the after.


End file.
